Sony AS30V High Definition POV Action Video Camera HDR-AS30V

CUSTOMER REVIEW



Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What's this?) This camera is so close to being the best in the industry but it's got some serious missed features to make it great.



Lets start with the GOOD:

Image Stabilization: It's the only sports camera on the market that has image stabilization, this is outstanding!!!

Small form Factor: the camera itself is really small compared to other cameras (but*** keep reading)

simple menus for easy adjustment from the side of camera with it's included screen and buttons on the side.

remote management: you can change settings remotely over WiFi but the options are limited.



Now to the BAD:

The lens is not rotatable: Contour(no longer in busines) and Drift (best on the market, IMO) really hit the features when they made the camera rotatable.

No mount on the camera: the camera has no way to mount it so no matter what you have to use a housing of some kind, utter FAIL

WiFi: Sucks power like crazy... Also limited ability to change setting for the camera. You can only change camera recording rates and angle of view. other settings like time lapse cant be adjusted and setting like flip have to be done from the side of camera. This is quite the pain when all the settings should be adjustable from the app.

Not able to select center point metering or change any metering setting at all, though the stock setting is pretty decent it would be nice to be able to make adjustments.

Microphone settings not adjustable.

Lousy location for mic, not accessible inside the case that it comes with (you can't drill through either because then you'll damage the locking lever that closes the case. You have to buy a goofy offset housing that then gives you access to the ports on the bottom of the camera. Even the optional screen case doesn't allow access to the microphone port... It really should be offset on the back of the camera like the Drift cameras did.

HEAT: This camera gets ridiculously HOT after only running for a short time, say 30 minutes. It seems rather clear to me that they are running the internals at either an over clocking level or have just not provided the proper heat sinking that should be had in a device like this. It seems very odd that other devices like the Ghost camera can run so much cooler and performs nearly the same. Though I might have to say this has a bit better night time visibility but the heat production of this camera is just astounding. Depending on the conditions the camera will actually shut down and stop recording because it has gotten so hot. I have worked with a number of other sports/action cameras and none have gotten as hot as this one. I used it indoors during Christmas morning with the family mounted with a couple rubber bands to a bracket on the wall for a light and after an hour it shut off from getting too hot. WiFi was turned off before beginning recording as well, and it was the camera alone, no case on it. When I noticed it had shut off I took it down but it was so hot that I couldn't even hold on to it.



While this camera has some awesome points like it's video quality, image stabilization, built in mic, and several other options it's got a lot of downfalls as well. Even still, if you want superior video quality then this is really the camera you should consider because it's image quality and image-stabilization make it an outstanding device I just wish it wasn't lacking is the other areas because then it would truly be the top camera on the market...



UPDATE the firmware: this gives you a FLIP option that allows you to slip the video 180 degrees in the camera so the camera can be mounted upside down and still give you the right perspective/angle of video.



If you like to mount a camera to your motorcycle and don't want to get vibration from the revs of the bike I would highly recommend this for that but remember you will need to adjust the angle of the video by adjusting the angle of the camera as the lens can not rotate to change the angle.



Sony, you have an outstanding start here but please, take some strong notes from the leaders in the market like Drift and others that have so much more function in their cameras for the user to be able to make the adjustments they need to.



via Amazon Best Seller V2 copy copy http://ift.tt/14AigGL